A liquid crystal panel used for a liquid crystal display such as a liquid crystal TV receiver, for example, does not emit light spontaneously and thus needs a backlight device separately as an illuminating device. As the backlight device, one placed on the back side of the liquid crystal panel (side opposite to its display surface) is well known, which has a number of dot light sources (e.g., light emitting elements such as light emitting diodes).
A backlight device using white light emitting diodes (white LEDs) is known. However, white LEDs often have variations in the tone of white color. Under such circumstances, a backlight device described in Patent Document 1 is known as a device capable of emitting a predetermined level of white light using white LEDs having variations in color tone. In this backlight device, when the light from the white LEDs has a tinge of yellow, light emission of blue LEDs is intensified, to obtain a predetermined level of white light. Patent Document 2 to be described later also describes a similar technique.